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THERE is a quiet movement afoot in state Democratic circles to draft former Gov. Mario Cuomo as the party’s candidate for the 2000 Senate seat being vacated by Pat Moynihan. The Dems, who thought they would have a bunch of marquee names from which to choose, are now reduced to the far-fetched notion of running Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Cuomo could be an inspired choice if, as I suspect, he’s ready to go back into public service after four years of making really big bucks as a lawyer and highly paid speaker. He would lift the level of oratory in the Senate by several notches, and his liberal beliefs wouldn’t be a handicap to his election to that body.

Of course, if he is tapped, he’ll likely end up running against Mayor Rudy, who famously crossed party lines to endorse him over George Pataki in the 1994 gubernatorial race. I couldn’t get to Cuomo over the weekend to ask for comment about this scenario because he was too busy celebrating a happy family event – the birth of his latest grandchild, Samantha, the ninth successive girl in the Cuomo line.

The proud parents are Cuomo’s daughter, Madeline, and her fireman-turned-lawyer husband, Brian O’Donoghue. Her HUD-secretary brother, Andrew, drove down from D.C. alone to be at New York Hospital for the birth, and her other brother, Chris, the Fox News hunk, arrived bearing armloads of baby presents.